East Perth Power Station's History: Drowning in Reports, Starving for Answers

If you’ve ever tried to research the history of the East Perth Power Station, you’ll know it’s not for the faint-hearted. For a site of such significance, spanning 65 years of operation, you’d expect a clear, consolidated body of historical knowledge. Instead, what you get is a tangled mess of repetitive heritage reports, half-hidden documents, and frustrating dead ends.

Over the last 30 years, there have been countless heritage assessments, conservation plans, environmental studies and consultant reports written about East Perth Power Station. On paper, this sounds promising… until you actually start reading them.

The harsh reality is that many of these reports tend to recycle the same basic information, sometimes lifting paragraphs word-for-word from earlier documents. They rarely answer the long-standing unanswered questions about the site’s history, operations or infrastructure. Instead, they often gloss over the gaps or simply acknowledge them without investigation. Each new report seems to focus on repackaging what is already known, rather than uncovering new insights or clarifying inconsistencies.

The skeletal remains of East Perth Power Station's boiler house

This creates an expensive loop: consultants are paid to “update” reports with no real fresh findings, the government spends public money for outcomes that add little value and the historical record remains patchy at best.

One of the most frustrating aspects is how many of these reports aren’t even made publicly available. Some are buried within archives, accessible only via FOI requests or insider knowledge. Others are uploaded in obscure places, with broken links or inaccessible file formats. As a result, instead of enriching public knowledge and supporting heritage appreciation, these reports become gatekept documents, technically in existence but practically out of reach.

For anyone passionate about history, it’s disheartening. For those researching heritage, whether academics, enthusiasts, or community members, it’s an uphill battle to find even basic information that should be easy to access. Worse still, when you do find a report, the likelihood of it actually providing the answers you were seeking is slim.

East Perth Power Station's old Offices and Test Room Workshops

East Perth Power Station deserves better. With redevelopment slowly creeping along and new decisions being made about its future, it’s time to acknowledge that repeating the same heritage reports is not only wasteful but also undermines genuine heritage preservation. What’s needed are thorough, publicly accessible investigations that prioritise real history, not box-ticking exercises.

Until then, those of us trying to untangle the past of East Perth Power Station are left piecing together scattered scraps of information, when it really shouldn’t be this hard.